Surging Ice - The New Spring Thaw

With increasingly erratic temperature swings occurring in accordance with the Zetas' predictions, combined with unpredictably forceful winds from a worsening Earth wobble, rapidly thawing winter ice has precipitated unprecedented destruction along lakes and inland rivers in the northern latitudes. From Alaska to Minnesota, walls of ice have surged across shorelines engulfing homes and leaving astonished onlookers in their wake.

SOZT The ice flows piling up on shorelines in N America are certainly caused in the main by the more violent Earth wobble. This, combined with repeated thawing and freezing which has been as result of the incipient blending of the seasons. Hard frozen lake ice does not move under the wind, but when thin due to the Spring thaw is more mobile. Ice flows that would ordinarily be thick, and thus bump into one another but remain in place, are thawed to a thinness that allows them to fracture as they are thrust against one another, thus in a state that can be carried by waves readily. Is this likely to get worse as the 8 of 10 blending of the seasons progresses? It is likely to be a temporary feature, as when the blending is firmly in place, no significant ice will form on these lakes in the first place!EOZT

May 1, 2013

Saskatchewan's Water Security Agency captured stunning footage of a 9-ft wall of ice ploughing for miles across the frozen Codette Reservoir near Nipawin, Saskatchewan.

Boulders of ice pounded villages along Alaska's Yukon River, destroying outbuildings and knocking homes off their foundations, though not as severe as the rapid thaw in 2009 that buried the region in blocks of river ice.

"The blending of the seasons will be a phenomena that will occur during the 8 of 10 scenarios, in the time prior to the last weeks. Due to the Earth wobble, there are many phenomena in many parts of the globe which could be described as unseasonable weather. Snow in summer has occurred and is on the increase. Very warm days in the middle of winter, more than the typical winter thaw, so that fruit trees bud in winter, ruining the harvest when frost returns. But the blending of the seasons will be characterized by extreme change happening rapidly, one direction to another. What you have had up until the present is trends for more extreme weather. Imagine going from the heat of the hottest summer day to the cold of the coldest winter day, all within a day or so. That is a blending of the seasons."

Cottage damaged by ice shoves along the Bay of Green Bay

TOWN OF UNION, Wis. (WFRV) - Most years, the danger presented by ice shoves along the Bay of Green Bay has passed by April, but 2018 has proved to be unlike most years.

Many people who live along the Bay of Green Bay spent the better part of a weekend trying to move out of the way of the powerful force of nature.

Greg Ludwig manages a cottage in the Town of Union, that was not fortunate enough to escape the devastation.

Saturday morning, an ice shove made its way out of the bay, and into the front bedroom of the structure.

"You know, like they say, it came in like a freight train, there's no stopping it," Ludwig told Local Five, "you can't, it's mother nature, it is what it is."

Ludwig was notified to the incident by the sheriff's office, over concerns that the cottage's gas line could be compromised by the intruding ice, possibly putting the cottage in danger of an explosion.

Luckily, the gas line is located at the other side of the cottage, and has not yet been touched by ice.

Ludwig says the ice has not moved since Saturday, but he is checking on it everyday, until an excavator can be brought in to push the snow and ice back into the bay it came from.

The damaged wall and window will then be boarded up until repairs can be made at a later date.

Rare blue ice stacks 'as high as a three-story building' form along Michigan's Great Lakes

"..Dozens of people lined up along the shore to snap photos and crawl near the big blocks of ice, some towering over 30 feet tall (Feb 25) . A combination of wind and the current pushed the chunks to shore, where they piled up on top of each other to build "mountains" of ice.

Dustin Dilworth, of Gaylord, Michigan, located about an hour south of the Mackinac Bridge, traveled to Mackinaw City on Monday to witness the rare phenomenon.

"In the Straits of Mackinac, these ice stacks can be as high as a three-story building," Dilworth told Fox News.

Pictures "never really do it justice," Burley added, as she described the beauty of the "light sea glass blue" color that reflects off the ice when the sun hits it just right.

"They can't capture the glow or size of it," she said..."

Dustin Dilworth captures a photo of giant blue ice chunks forming along the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan. (Instagram/d3.imagery)

Fluctuating temperatures are causing massive river ice jams

( FROZEN RIVER ICE - Frozen river ice melts in layers as chunks wash up on shore. Stan Horaczek )

Right now, a section of the Mohawk River in Schenectady, New York, is doing its best impression of a giant snow cone. Enormous chunks of ice, some weighing thousands of pounds, have crawled up onto the shore and covered the surface of the water just down the road from the original GE plant. The phenomenon is called an ice jam, and while it’s fascinating to look at, it can cause serious floods in surrounding areas.

This winter has proven especially conducive to ice jamming, due in large part to the wild temperature swings we have endured. Here’s what’s happening.

This type of jam is called a breakup jam. “Rain and snowmelt cause the water level to rise and break its connection to the bank,” says Steven Daly, a research hydraulic engineer with theUS Army Corps of Engineersat the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab in Hanover, New Hampshire. “It breaks up the ice and the water starts moving the pieces until they reach a point where the capacity of the river can’t carry all the ice.”

This typically happens when the temperatures get cold enough to form a thick layer of ice on top of the water, then warm up rapidly, which is exactly the situation the Mohawk River has been in this year. The average temperature during the first week of January stayed well below freezing, with a high that remained below zero on several days. Then, by the 13th of January, it was 60 degrees with rain, which is a perfect recipe for a pile-up like this.

“The Mohawk River is famous for ice jams,” Daly says. “Long, cold winters make thick ice to cover the river. If it warms up gradually, you won’t get an ice jam. It’s rapid rise and flow that causes it.”

The Army Corps of Engineers keeps anIce Jam Database, which has already tracked more than 100 jams in 2018. New York is in the lead with 25 ice instances so far, but other states—many of which are in the northeast part of the country—are already approaching double digits.

These icy traffic jams tend to happen in the same places each year because of the structures of the rivers. “Any structure that crosses the channel, like a dam, lock, log boom, or even a bridge with a lot of piers, or a sharp turn in the river can cause a jam,” says Daly.

In the case of the Mohawk, it’s this railroad bridge near the old Schenectady train station that impedes the flow. Beyond the bridge, the water is frozen, but smooth.

Once a jam is in place, there’s not a whole lot anyone can really do about it. “We would never send a boat out into a jam like this,” says Daly. “The only thing you can do is try to pick up ice from the shore using equipment.”

It is, however, possible to get ahead of the problem. In 2004, a Department of Environmental Conservation project installed a jam-prevention system in a flood-prone section of the Cazenovia Creek, roughly two miles southwest of Buffalo. The system consists of nine steel-jacketed concrete piers, spaces 17 feet apart. They extend 10 feet out of the water and are five feet in diameter. In essence, they’re big cement pillars designed to control the flow of ice chunks down river to prevent them from piling up and causing floods.

While the project has helped the flooding problem, it didn’t come cheap. The DEP report puts the total cost of construction at $1,828,962.60. So, while these problems may persist in some areas, it takes considerable investment in infrastructure to solve the issue.

If temperatures continue to fluctuate, we can expect to see more of this phenomenon going forward. And while it’s very cool to look at, Daly says you certainly shouldn’t go walking on it. “It may look solid, but it’s not,” he says. “It’s impossible to get you out.”

All Eyes on the River- Ice Jam Heading Downstream

03/19/2015 05:43 PM

Tunkhannock, Wyoming County- The Department of Environmental Services said this afternoon that an ice jam in the Susquehanna River in Wyoming County has broken free and is headed downstream. Many people are now concerned about a bridge in Luzerne County that would be affected if the ice hits it or puts pressure on it. The bridge in question is the Coxton Railroad Bridge that spans the Susquehanna River from Exeter to Duryea. Officials are concerned that the jams could cause the bridge to collapse which could lead to possible flooding. Last summer the county received a 615-thousand dollar grant to demolish the bridge.

Driven by high winds, ice from Lake Mille Lacs has gone on a rampage in recent days, bursting into homes, tearing up the shoreline, blocking roads and forming massive mounds in yards.

The problems are mostly in the Garrison, Minn., area on the western shore of the lake, which has taken the brunt of the east winds accompanying recent rains. Last year, it was the southeast corner of the lake, near Isle and Wahkon.

On Thursday, Onamia resident Jerome Kryzer stood on a green at Izatys Resort golf course, eyeing the ice, which stood taller than him in areas. Kryzer said the ice already had swept onto the golf course and much of the resort’s land.

Ice broke through a large window at Randy Dykhoff’s home north of Garrison over the weekend, filling a corner of the living room nearly to the ceiling. On Thursday, Dykhoff, of Mound, said he carried several wheelbarrow loads of ice from the house. It was the first time the home has been damaged by ice since 1997, when he bought the property.

Massive ice floes blown ashore by strong easterly winds tore the roof off a shed, knocked a sauna off its foundation, and piled ice 12 feet deep in beach-front yards along Big Traverse Road late Sunday and early Monday. A few camps and homes sustained minor damage, but appear to have been spared the brunt of the blast.

Houghton County officials remarked on the so-called “ice tsunami” on Traverse Bay saying they are still working to find if relief may be available to homeowners if necessary.

"If it would have piled three to four feet further inland, it would have done substantially more damage," said Jack Dueweke, Houghton County's emergency manager.

Mark Plichta, who lives on Little Traverse Bay, said ice was pushed about 30 to 40 feet up the beach in front of his home, but wider beaches there prevented any serious damage.

He said the winds were strong when he went to bed Sunday night, but he didn't notice the ice until he woke up Monday morning and saw it piled about six feet high on the beach.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Don Rolfsom, from the Negaunee Township station, said the phenomenon, called ice shelving, is extremely rare on Lake Superior.

Prior to this spring, he'd never seen it on Superior, though he said a similar situation happened just a week ago near Menominee on Lake Michigan.

On the shores of Lake Simcoe in Brechin, winter ice is melting - but there, it doesn’t flood, it crushes.

The ice is breaking up and piling onto the shore.

In Brechin, the ice shove is as high as some boat houses and in some cases is swallowing them or smashing through them.

“We were flabbergasted when we saw the damage,” says resident Anne Pike.

“It just went right through that building. You just can't stop it, when it starts to move it just keeps going.”

John Chemilien says the owners of a property are from out of town and though it’s a write-off for now, trees stopped the ice from swallowing a larger house. One ruined house will now become an insurance claim.

“The ice has been here, it's caused damage,” says Brechin resident John Chemilien. “That little house will have to be rebuilt because of all the damage inside and out.”

The power of Mother Nature is truly remarkable; one big dock was 30 feet into the water and now the ice has pushed it all the way up to the house.

Local news outlets in states such as Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania reported on the snowy sculptures Monday, with some local residents saying they had yards full of them.

Snow rollers are a rare meteorological phenomenon in which large columns of snow form when wind blows chunks of snow along the ground, says the National Weather Service.

Meteorologist Jason Nicholas says, "We had temps near freezing when the snow began - perhaps even a little ice formed on the top at the surface to not allow for the snow to stick and to allow it to roll. Then the winds picked up basically rolling the snow like a snow ball."

Strong winds are required to create snow rollers to form and push the snowballs along. Some common shapes that snow rollers take are balls, donuts and even jelly rolls. Although snow rollers look like snowballs, they are not tightly packed.

Nancy Graham, 68, said her yard is covered with the rare forms, and that it's something she had never seen before.

Jerry Grega, who lives in Mansfield, Ohio said he had some in his backyard Monday.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.

Bob Vogel crawled out of bed early Monday to go cross-country skiing in Sharon Township, Ohio. When he stepped outdoors, he was amazed by what greeted him.

“The biggest one was about 15 inches wide. Another was 2 feet long,” he said of the balls known as snow rollers. “They are all different sizes and shapes.”

It’s such a rare phenomenon that when Northeast Ohio weather experts were contacted for more information about snow rollers, they responded with “what are they used for?”

"It's so uncommon," said Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist with Accuweather.

Kines said he has seen snow rollers only once, in New England. He said AccuWeather rarely receives reports of sightings of snow rollers.

"I think what I find amazing on this is that they are very rare, uncommon, and yet in this particular case they happenned in a lot of areas – throughout Northeast Ohio and into Western Pennsylvania. A lot of people have observed these. For a phenomenon that is so rare to be so widespread, that's pretty interesting."